suited in a work that reflects well on the Mexican American Mono-graph Series published jointly by the University of Texas Press and theCenter for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas.Angelo State University ARNOLDO DE LEONA Terry Texas Ranger: The Lzfe Record of H. W. Graber. By H. W. Graber.Introduction by Thomas W. Cutrer. (Austin: State House Press,1987. Pp. xxxiii+454. Introduction, preface, index. $19.95, cloth;$12.95, paper.)Of all the troops from Texas who fought for the Confederacy, fewestablished a better combat record or won greater fame than Terry'sTexas Rangers. Never officially Texas Rangers, these volunteers discov-ered in the spring of 1862 they had "a reputation [they] had neverearned but were called on to sustain" (p. 35). And sustain it they did,accumulating battle honors from Kentucky to North Carolina, whilewinning acclaim as one of the Army of Tennessee's hardest-fightingand most reliable units.The long-overdue reissue of a rare 1916 memoir, A Terry TexasRanger: The Life Record of H. W. Graber is a welcome addition to theliterature concerning this famous outfit. Henry W. Graber-German-born, well-educated, and acquisitive-cut an unlikely figure as thestereotypical Rebel cavalryman; his expertise was in the dry-goods busi-ness, and at heart he always remained a merchant. Although he sur-vived many scrapes, Graber somehow managed to miss most of theRangers' greatest moments of martial glory. Written more than fiftyyears after the fact, his descriptions of wartime experiences supplementbut in no way replace the other better-known Terry's Texas Rangerreminiscences of Leonidas B. Giles and James K. P. Blackburn.Henry Graber's postwar recollections are, in some ways, his most re-vealing. The first attempt to reestablish his Hempstead dry goods busi-ness failed when he became embroiled with northern occupation forces.In one of the book's most dramatic sections, Graber tells of fleeing hisfamily and home after killing two Federal soldiers in self-defense. Thedescription of his subsequent odyssey across the desolated South pre-sents a compelling picture of the turmoil and uncertainty that markedthe beginning of Reconstruction. The remainder of Graber's mem-oir-a long and sometimes bitter account of his Sisyphian efforts toachieve lasting business success-concludes with the charming story ofhow he and some other veterans were able to retrieve from the state ofIndiana a lost regimental flag of Terry's Texas Rangers.

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